No one is more empathetic than a teenage boy, right?

HA.

Growing up multilingual can create some unique challenges, especially when peers expect you to “pick a side.”

In this Slovenian high school, classmates always picked on their peer for speaking English, but when the taunting continued, she responded in a language they never saw coming.

Read on for the full story!

Sure, I’ll speak in my mother tongue

Yesterday, I (17f) was in the changing room with my classmates after P.E., when they started ganging up on me about speaking English.

We live in Slovenia, and I am Slovene, but I only came back to my country after living abroad (for 4 years) in 2023.

This time away really strengthened her English speaking skills.

Abroad, I attended a European school and spoke English basically always, all my classes were in English and a couple were in French.

All that is to say, I speak fluent English, I think in English, I even dream in English.

It’s made a lasting impact that has made switching back to Slovenian more difficult.

Sometimes, I even have to translate a sentence in my head or words with Google translate, because I think first in English.

I speak Slovenian in school.

But their problem was apparently that often, when saying something out loud to myself or to the general public, I say it in English, because that’s just how my brain is wired.

I honestly don’t even realise what language I’ve used until a couple seconds after I finish talking.

Her classmates weren’t too understanding of this dilemma.

Their argument was that I’ve been in Slovenia for a year and should switch back to Slovenian.

It’s not a problem of me not wanting to switch, is that at this time, this is impossible.

They said that boys in our class are laughing at me when I speak English.

True, but they’ve laughed at a chair before, so I’m not that worried.

They didn’t let me argue back or explain myself.

Her peers just couldn’t let it go.

One girl was even yelling at me about it, which, calm down, it ain’t that deep (as someone told me, her parents fought a lot before divorcing, so that apparently now excuses her actions).

But then, they messed up and asked me what my mother tongue is.

They obviously expected me to say Slovenian, so they could argue I should speak it.

Little did they know, Slovenian wasn’t her only “mother tongue”.

While yes, it is Slovenian, it’s also French.

I’ve lived abroad before, when I was very little, and growing up, I learned both languages at the same time.

I even spoke mainly French up until I went to first grade.

I still speak French with my mom (although both my parents are Slovenian, it’s so I don’t lose the language).

Say it’s a loophole or “Well, actually ☝️🤓”, but I took the chance.

So she spoke up in full French.

I’m currently speaking to all of them in French.

Funny enough, I don’t even speak to them, but anything I say to myself or in their general direction, it’s French.

And now she’s fully embracing it, just to get back at them.

It’s actually very fun and a nice way to not forget the language as I only have my mom to speak it with.

I think I’ll continue this until someone apologizes.

Currently, I only speak non-French with two of my classmates, my best friend who was on my side, and a girl who has (I guess) apologized, and both don’t mind me talking in English.

They wanted her to stop speaking English, so she certainly did.

What did Reddit have to say?

This commenter urges her not to lose sight of the great advantages being multilingual can provide.

It’s not her classmates who have the upper hand here – it’s her!

Americans and Europeans have very different outlooks when it comes to learning new languages.

As is often the case, their bullying says way more about them than it does about her!

Her classmates thought they were clever, but she was up for the challenge.

They’re going to need a translator from here on out.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.